Over the weekend my team let me know that we hit a significant milestone.
To date, we have helped over 17,000 people sell their products or services for over $25,000.
I remember when my goal was to help 1000 people do it.
I thought “If I do that, then I’ll have created $25,000,000 in value for businesses”.
Which is a pretty insane number.
So why is 17,000 significant?
Why not 16,000 or 20,000?
Because I had absolutely no idea how much impact I was making. And it wasn’t until my team pointed out our numbers, that I realised that we’ve helped a lot of people.
Right now, I am in the absolute rock bottom of the “Dunning Kruger effect curve”
You know the model that states when you’re a beginner, you don’t know how much there is to learn, so you think you’re an expert?
Or when you start a new habit like going to the gym, you almost enjoy the struggle?
And then it gets to this peak where you question if the result is worth the effort.
“I wasn’t that out of shape, I can stop.”
“My revenue wasn’t that bad, I can quit.”
Bit by bit you realise that that this is going to be much much harder than you realise.
The more you know, the more you realise you don’t know.
And that’s where I am with YouTube.
I’d been doing it for years. I knew pretty much all there was.
Until I started to take it seriously.
And then I realised that my numbers aren’t as good as I wanted.
My thumbnails sucked.
My view time and retention was awful…
And now I’m in the absolute bottom of the “trough of despair”.
Basically, I realised how far I have to go and how much work it’s going to take.
And the more I learn, the more I realise I don’t know what I’m doing.
And that’s when my team told me something very cool.
You see, the core to YouTube is giving people a massive big result that seems both impossible and achievable, AND package it in a way that feels both new and familiar as well as make it seem entertaining.
It’s like trying to capture lighting in a bottle.
And the more I do it, the more I realise I don’t know how to do it.
So I asked my team for some numbers.
Things we could share.
Things that seem amazing and achievable. But entertaining and safe at the same time.
17,000 was the number they gave me.
You see I was really down. Depressed even.
I don’t have a $1M business.
I don’t speak at global industry events.
I don’t have sponsors or an international podcast.
I don’t have anything amazing or new to share.
And my team told me to a) stop being such a whiny baby and b) we’ve helped 17,000 people.
17,000 people have bought our products, books, programs, courses, software, and training for charging $25,000 for their work.
And no, of course not every single one of them has charged that much.
But what if 10,000 have?
Or even 1000?
The fact is, I’ve tried to help at least 17,000 people and that’s worth celebrating.
We’ve all got amazing numbers and stories to share if we just listen a little.
“Comparison is the thief of joy” Theodore Roosevelt (probably).
What kinds of numbers or stories or results have you got that you’re not sharing?
